


Inconceivable

by IamShadow21



Series: Unexpected [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baby Ron, Deaf Character, Deaf Ron Weasley, Disability, Disabled Character, F/M, Family, First War with Voldemort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, POV Molly Weasley, Pregnancy, Premature Birth, See what I did there, Sign Language, The Dates Are Important, Unplanned Pregnancy, Weasley Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-16
Updated: 2008-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-03 06:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a series of unimaginable situations they'd never known to prepare themselves for.<br/><i>Set in 1980, with flashbacks to late 1979.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Inconceivable

**Author's Note:**

> I know the spacing sounds impossible, but it's not - I've spent all this afternoon and evening trawling the internet for facts, figures and calenders. I'm up to my ears in due dates and viability and everything else, now.
> 
> *eyes cross*

_No. She couldn’t be. It was far too soon._

Molly had woken early and gone to check on Ron, when partway to the cradle she’d felt the familiar churn of nausea and had to run to the toilet to be sick.

It shouldn’t be possible. She’d barely recovered from Ron’s delivery. He’d come soon, far too soon. A late Christmas present, the day after Boxing Day. Her brothers… the news had come, and after months of anxiety and terrible, terrible things occurring, it had been too much. Even as she wept and wailed in Arthur’s arms, she’d felt the first twinges of labour. Over two months early, he’d been tiny. A frail, red, baby bird smeared with blood, cupped in her mother’s hands, with a twist of auburn hair and an indignant high-pitched squall.

A strong name, they’d decided. One that would give him the power to fight for life. Ronald, _king_. And Bilius, for Arthur’s brother. She couldn’t stand the thought of naming him for either of her brothers; so bonny, barely cold. Bilius frequently annoyed her, frustrated her with his drunken, crude behaviour, but he was one of the few who still seemed to find something to laugh about in these dark times, and she knew he’d helped to arrange the collection of her brothers’ remains for burial. There had been no false levity from him over their deaths, just a gentle squeeze of the hand, and silence, and she saw for a moment in his eyes the depth of feeling that hid behind his eccentricity. He mourned them, too.

Ron was too small, too frail to sleep with, as she had all her other babies. He needed the protection of the cradle, the warmth and humidity constant and soothing as the womb he’d sped from in haste. Her mother had got it from somewhere, some friend who worked at St Mungo’s, and smuggled it through a chain of hands to the Burrow within hours of Ron’s untimely birth. Molly didn’t ask whether it had been stolen outright, as she suspected it had. The cradle was keeping Ron safe, helping him breathe. 

The Mediwitch, in blessed forethought, had sent a collection of odd little bottles with miniscule teats, too, Charmed to assist an early baby’s feeding. Ron had tried to feed from Molly’s breast and just hadn’t had the suction. The small amount of milk he’d drawn from her nipple had dribbled from his lips, and he’d cried out in protest, his tiny fists pinwheeling. He drank eagerly from the little bottle filled with Molly’s breast milk, draining half of it in short, rhythmic swallows, until his tiny belly was full and round, and he drifted off to sleep with a sigh.

Now, leaning over the toilet, Molly couldn’t believe how foolish she’d been, _they’d_ been, to put themselves in this position so soon after Ron’s troubled birth. Ron’s “official” due date wasn’t for another two weeks! 

She knew when it had happened, of course. Two weeks ago, when her mother had smuggled her Mediwitch friend to the Burrow to check Ron over, and the woman had gently broken the news to Molly and Arthur that their son was deaf.

“It happens, sometimes, when they’re born so early,” she said. “You did nothing wrong. He’s a fine, healthy boy. He’s just going to need a little help as he gets older, and when he goes to school. Don’t stop talking to him, even though he can’t hear you. You’re still connecting with him, even without sound, and that’s important.”

The woman had then rummaged through her seemingly bottomless carpet bag, and pulled out a few pamphlets about deafness, and a small booklet on WSL – Wizarding sign language.

“There are only a few basic signs in that, but it’s enough, for now. Practice them, and use them whenever you can, when you’d normally be talking to him; when he’s feeding, when you’re changing him. Teach the other kids too; they pick up WSL a lot quicker than adults. They’ll be better at it than you will, in a few months.”

Finding out that their son was _healthy_ but had a life-long disability was bittersweet. That night, though it was barely a month since Ron’s birth, Molly had turned to her husband. Physically, she probably wasn’t ready for it, but emotionally, she needed that connection. From the way he’d clung to her afterwards, not letting go, falling asleep in her arms, Arthur had needed it, too.

They hadn’t used a contraceptive charm. After all, who got pregnant a month after giving birth?

Knowing what the result would be before she’d even completed the last swish with her wand, Molly performed the charm to test for pregnancy. Then she went downstairs to await her husband’s return from the night shift, to tell him that he was going to be a father, again. Ron slept, tiny and perfect, in the cradle of her arms as she rocked in the chair by the fire.

***

Her pregnancy was difficult and dangerous. She’d borne her mother’s reprimand, and then meekly watched as she moved in and took over most of the household and child care duties. Molly kept Ron close by her, and watched with envy as her mother quelled the twins with an icy glare. Fred and George were two, now, and were more trouble than any of her other sons had been at that age, _doubled_. Despite their penchant for smearing paint and jam and mud the length and breadth of the house and creating mayhem without an effort, they’d taken an enormous interest in their new brother. Rather than the older sibling jealousy Molly had expected from them, they were always gentle with Ron, and declared more than once that he was _theirs_ to take care of. They also absorbed WSL like sponges, their fingers flying in a blur as they spoke to each other without words, inventing their own signs for things if Molly, Arthur or their brothers failed to produce one on demand.

“It’s a bit creepy, Mum,” Charlie had said one day, watching the twins’ animated, but silent, dialogue.

“It _is not_ , Charles Weasley!” Molly snapped. Charlie winced at his full first name, knowing he’d made an error. “Your brother is going to speak like this all the time! To talk to him, you’re going to have to learn to communicate with him in his own language, just like they are. Is that creepy?”

“No, mum. Sorry,” Charlie had mumbled, his cheeks flushed. “But isn’t he _ever_ going to talk?”

Molly softened. “Not like we do, love,” she said, gently brushing Charlie’s hair back from his brow. “His hands will be his voice.”

Nearly five months old, and no longer frail, Ron was an easy baby. He rarely cried, but he would beam and kick his legs with excitement when he saw any of his family, and the twins could elicit deep, joyful chuckles from him with their antics. She no longer feared, as she had when she first conceived again, how he would fare with less attention from her once the new baby was born. By the time he or she arrived, Ron would be nine months old and much more independent. She’d already seen him flapping his hands about in mimicry of his siblings, the sign equivalent of babbling.

“He’s _talking_ , Mum!” Percy had declared excitedly, one day, his too-large glasses slipping down his nose as he bounced up and down. “He said _wand!_ ” Percy pointed at an illustration in his hand-made WSL dictionary. He’d drawn the pictures, and Bilius, when he’d visited last, had Animated them. The stick figure in the book was moving one hand back and forth in a ‘swishing’ motion.

Molly looked down at her sunny boy, her Ron, who was indeed flailing his fists in all directions with great enthusiasm as he lay on his back on his soft rug on the floor. “Not quite yet, sweetheart,” she told Percy, “but he will soon.”

***

She was confined to bed in June, but even lying immobile, day after day, for weeks on end, failed to stop the baby from making an early appearance.

“I need Arthur,” she gasped, when the mild cramping she’d been having for two days progressed into contractions.

“He’s coming,” her mother reassured her.

Molly and Arthur’s newest child slipped into the world half an hour before midnight, furious and screaming the house down, and bigger than Ron had been despite being a little earlier.

“Looks perfect,” Molly’s mother had said, wiping down the infant and placing it on Molly’s stomach. “ _You_ , however, won’t survive another. Those twin hellions upstairs have stopped you being able to carry to full term, and this last pregnancy has all but ruined your health. I don’t want to bury my daughter before her youngest children are even out of nappies.”

Her voice was gruff and brisk, but underneath, Molly could hear the grief. _My boys have lain under the soil less than a year_ , she was pleading, _don’t leave me, too._

Molly squeezed Arthur’s hand, and felt his gentle reciprocation. “No more, Mum,” Molly agreed, her voice cracked and weary.

A short while later, five of her owl-eyed, rumpled children filed in to see their new sibling. Bill, who’d seen it all before, shot Molly a relieved smile. Fred and George, who’d been too young at the time to really remember Ron’s birth, hovered uncertainly a little way away, their hands interlaced.

“Come on,” Arthur encouraged, holding out an arm. “Mummy’s all right, she’s just very tired. Come and see your new brother.”

The twins shuffled forward and climbed into the familiar comfort of their father’s lap to peer at the tiny, wrinkled baby asleep in the cradle.

“This is Jonathan,” Arthur said quietly.

“He’s too little to be our brother,” Fred declared.

“He’ll get bigger,” Arthur assured him.

Fred and George looked disbelieving.

“Can we hold him?” Charlie asked softly.

“Not yet, Charlie. He needs to be in the cradle all the time, for a while, until he’s big enough. Do you remember what happened when Ron was born?” Charlie nodded. “It’ll be just like that. He’ll be able to be out for longer and longer, and then one day he won’t need it any more.”

“Just like Ron?” Charlie asked, his voice tight.

“We don’t know yet, love,” Molly whispered from the pillows.

“He’ll be all right,” Percy declared confidently, picking up on the hidden nuances in the conversation very sharply, considering he was only five. “I’ve got my dictionary, now.”

Molly’s mother shooed the children back to bed a minute later, though Molly suspected that the excitement would keep them awake and unsettled. Arthur lay down beside her in the darkened room, one arm laid gently over her, as though she were made of glass.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you, too,” he replied, softly kissing her cheek.

As they slept, the first day of August dawned, warm and fresh, full of promise.


End file.
